About six months ago, Andile Yawa sat in the back seat of a car from Marikana to Joburg. He’d spent the day talking about the death of his son, Cebisile, who was shot by police on 16 August 2012 in a volley of fire from the Tactical Response Team. Andile Yawa stood at “Scene One” where his son fell. He sat on the koppie where the miners demanded to be heard. In the car, Yawa, who was a miner until his son took over his job, talked about his children. He stared at a photo of Cebisile flexing his muscles like a body builder, the image wrapped in a pink frame with love hearts and teddy bears.

Two months after the president received the report from the Marikana Inquiry, demands for its release have increased. The Commission sat for two years, with a dwindling promise of truth and justice for relatives of the victims and injured survivors who repeatedly relived the gruesome details of that week in 2012. President Jacob Zuma received its report, including recommendations, at the end of March. While he promised it would be released, two-and-a-half years after the massacre, after 293 days of inquiry sittings, and 55 days since Zuma received the report from the inquiry’s Commissioners, patience is running out.

Last week the Marikana Support Campaign, Right2Know and the South African History Archive submitted a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application for the presidency to release the report. According to PAIA regulations, the presidency must respond to the request within 30 days. “It has been more than two-and-a-half years since the Marikana massacre on 16 August 2012, and there have been no arrests made for the murder of the 34 miners who were killed while striking… The Commission report and findings are crucial to determining the truth about what happened at Marikana, to hold those responsible for the massacre to account and to ensure that justice is served,” the organisations said in a press release. The Mail & Guardian has also submitted a PAIA application for access to the report.

According to City Press, around 300 miners and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) have written to the presidency demanding its release by Tuesday. The newspaper said lawyers for the union and miners told Zuma that withholding the report violated the rights to life, dignity, freedom and security. Their demand was motivated by Zuma’s delay, obscurity over when the report would be released, the retirement of a key SAPS leader, and the influence the report would have on civil claims. It was announced last week that North West Police Commissioner Zukiswa Mbombo would retire at the end of May. Mbombo was effectively in charge of operations at Marikana and is on record in a transcript with a Lonmin executive linking the police action to end the strike to fears over Julius Malema’s popularity and nationalisation.

If Zuma and the ANC government want to put Marikana behind them, the first step is releasing the Commission’s report. But it could provide a number of challenges for the president. While it appears that there’s no evidence implicating Zuma, the Commission could find Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s role communicating between Lonmin, then-Minister of Mineral Resources Susan Shabangu, and then Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa, may have caused the hasty implementation of an inadequate plan to disperse and disarm the mineworkers. Although it seems unlikely there will be recommendations to prosecute them, it would put the president and his party in a difficult position. Then there are the police commanders who could face recommendations for prosecution or, in the case of National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega, a potential finding that she is unfit for office. If responsibility for the majority of deaths falls on the police, it will create challenges for the state in how to act on the parties at fault and will be an embarrassing acknowledgement of the state’s role in the death of striking workers.

Perhaps that’s why Zuma is taking his time. Or perhaps he’s just slow to act (remember, there still hasn’t been any new Cabinet appointment since the death of Collins Chabane). The president has committed to releasing the report, but legislation does not require him to do so, and he has not offered any indication of when the report might be made public.

But 34 people died on 16 August. Another 10 died in the preceding week. Over 100 people were injured, hundreds arrested. The Commission was touted as the difference between the democratic and Apartheid state – this government is committed to truth and justice. If that line holds true, Zuma must release the report immediately, even if he indicates that further action on behalf of the National Prosecuting Authority or himself may take time.

After sitting through hundreds of days of legal proceedings, seeing gruesome images of their loved ones, and trying to survive after losing breadwinners, the relatives of the mineworkers, security guards and police who were killed deserve to know the Commission’s findings. They need to know whether they will be offered any financial compensation, which will determine whether civil claims go ahead. They need to know whether anyone will be held accountable and, if so, who.

Both for healing and to avoid a repeat of the disaster, the country needs to know what part the link between mine management, union leaders and politicians played. It needs to know the recommendations for policing. As one of the most important events, if not the most, in post-Apartheid South Africa, there is so much more the country needs to know about Marikana.

The report is unlikely to be a panacea. There has been concern as to which way the three Commissioners might swing in their views of the police, and whether they will recommend any cops or police leaders face criminal charges. And whatever the Commissioners recommend may not necessarily be implemented. Some people are also concerned that the report could be edited before its release.

On Sunday, Andile Yawa said the issue still hurt. On 16 August 2012, his son suffered wounds from a handgun bullet, multiple shots from automatic rifles, and shotgun pellets. The government, an ANC government, should be protecting the poor who voted it in, but instead it is protecting the police, its own leaders and mine bosses, said his father. Yawa just wants answers and closure. It’s in God’s hands, he said – there’s nothing more to do. DM

Photo: South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is silhouetted in the Farlam Commission, in Centurion, outside Pretoria August 11, 2014. Ramaphosa is facing a probe into the 2012 Marikana killings of striking miners. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Read more:

• Marikana Commission: Families speak in Daily Maverick
• Marikana Commission closing arguments
• The closing of the Marikana Commission: The Thin Blue Line in Daily Maverick
• Marikana Commission: Compensate the relatives in Daily Maverick
• Marikana: The list of accused in Daily Maverick